<p>I shrug at “Atlas Shrugs.” If you can’t tell that those guys in Virginia are a bunch of kooks, well…</p>
<p>Razorsharp – you use Atlas Shrugs as a source and expect to be taken seriously? Okey-doke. That site is about as reliable as the sites that claim that Elvis is alive and Paul McCartney is dead. Any credibility you had remaining is pretty much shot.</p>
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<p>If you listen to the youtube video of judge martin, it should shock you if you have any understanding of criminal law and the US constituion. Beginning around minute 31 or so you hear his deliberations in his own words. He lets a muslin attacker go free after assaulting an atheist because the atheist was wearing a mohammad costume. The judge chose is own religion over the atheist’s right of free speech. I guess you find that acceptable?</p>
<p>Whether Judge Martin is a kook has little bearing, in my mind, on whether the “Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force” is composed of a bunch of kooks as well.</p>
<p>I will note, though, in passing, that on another thread, folks of a certain general attitude are calling for punishment for a girl who wore an offensive pope costume.</p>
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<p>You doubted sharia law was informed anywhere in American and I gave you three legitimate examples. Atlas linked to the video of the Judge’s own statements showing how he permitted a muslin to commit a crime against someone exercising his right of free speech. It looks like you have made up your mind and don’t want the truth to interfere with your opinion. Judge Martin’s action is scary and it reflects what would happen if more muslim judges are in power.</p>
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<p>There are people who call for lots of things. What I am concerned about is people in power such as judges enforcing criminal law.</p>
<p>No, razorsharp, your understanding of the Martin case is less than sophisticated, and you need to try to use real news websites rather than Atlas Shrugs if you want to be taken seriously. The judge is NOT Muslim, he is Lutheran; he was not attempting to impose Sharia Law; and he dismissed the case for lack of evidence, not because he was “a Muslim sticking up for another Muslim.” Honestly, I’m embarrassed for you at this point.</p>
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<p>No, you did not. You gave examples of articles that completely disregarded, or whose authors didn’t have the ability to comprehend, what the cases were truly about.</p>
<p>I thought I remembered reading something about anti-Sharia law activity, and found this:</p>
<p>[Kansas</a> governor signs measure blocking Islamic law ? USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-05-26/kansas-governor-signs-anti-sharia-law/55224584/1]Kansas”>http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-05-26/kansas-governor-signs-anti-sharia-law/55224584/1)</p>
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<p>There is another article about it in the Huffington Post. I don’t think those two publications are generally known as “fear mongering,” but I could be wrong about that.</p>
<p>From a legal point of view, the whole thing about Sharia law is silly. U.S. courts aren’t going to apply Sharia law. They are going to apply US law. But you can whip up concern about just about anything.</p>
<p>The fear-mongering is taking place on sites that say these anti-Sharia laws are necessary. Parties can agree to use different types of laws. For example, if the Jewish parties to a dispute agreed earlier to abide by Jewish law in an arbitration, the court can enforce that. Courts can be deferential to religious laws that parties have agreed to follow. You see this, more often than not, in an arbitration agreement. There is outrage if Islamic law is looked at in an arbitration, but generally not if Jewish, or Ecclesiastical law is considered.</p>
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Even in such a case, the court isn’t really enforcing the non-US law; it’s enforcing the agreement that results from the arbitration. This is really a non-issue, except as a means to stir people up.</p>
<p>This is exactly what’s happening here. If two parties agreed earlier, in a binding and fully legal document, that they would settle disputes about XYZ by rock-paper-scissors, and such a dispute came up and the matter went to arbitration and a judge said you have to abide by the rock-paper-scissors in your arbitration just like you signed, that would be a judge enforcing parameters that two parties previously agreed to, not a judge enshrining rock-paper-scissors into the US legal system.</p>
<p>But you can tell a lot about critical thinking skills by who understands this, and who thinks that “OMG judges are trying to instill Sharia law, we must do something.”</p>
<p>In the immortal words of Governor Christie, responding to concerns when he appointed a judge who happens to be Muslim - This Sharia Law business is just crap.</p>
<p>While I agree that the laws banning the application of Sharia law in US courts seem superfluous, I am not 100% convinced yet that there might not be a nuanced need for it in some domestic situations, but I admit I cannot think of a specific example and am being defensive because I am wary about women and children’s rights or lack thereof under Sharia law.</p>
<p>Jewish law can have similar problems–i.e., a woman’s inability to obtain a divorce if her husband objects, but the reverse isn’t true.</p>
<p>I just can’t think of a situation in which one of those laws would trump the US law that a court would apply.</p>
<p>There may be a few rogue judges (just as I could give you a few wacky judgments by Christian fundamentalist judges), I don’t think any of those judgments will stand up if appealed.</p>
<p>I agree with Hunt. I’m not too worried about Sharia law in US courts. However, as like the Jewish law example, I know for a fact that there are some COMMUNITIES that impose Sharia law on their members. And sometimes, like the Mafia, there are religious groups that impose their will on non-members who are nearby. Of course, they always have the recourse of the secular court system, but sometimes that can be difficult to come by in practice. Which is very sad for the individuals, as in the cases of women who can only get civil divorces, but that doesn’t mean that our nation is in danger.</p>
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<p>I’m thinking more along the lines of what might be left standing in the absence of a conflicting US law.</p>
<p>Ok, maybe try this. No court is going to prosecute a Jewish person for eating bacon. It’s not illegal for an adult to eat bacon. However, if two Jewish people signed a legally binding agreement that their business partnership would be dissolved if it were found that one person ate bacon, and it was indeed found factually that one person ate bacon and the other person wanted to dissolve the partnership, a judge would indeed have to rule - you “broke the law” of your partnership and therefore your partnership should be dissolved. That would not be the judge decreeing that Jewish people in general need to be bound by Jewish law or that Jewish law should trump US law.</p>
<p>PG,
I think what you described is a straight contracts case. Jewish law really has nothing to do with it. It would be less clear if the contract, entered into by the two partners, read something like, “per Jewish law, if you eat bacon, your wife will clean my house for one year as required by [section xyz of the Talmud, or whatever].” Then when the wife doesn’t do the cleaning, the businessman sues his partner and his wife for a year’s worth of cleaning services that he ended up having to pay for rather than getting for free from his partner’s wife. If you were the judge, would you apply Jewish law and rule in favor of the plaintiff?</p>